When advertisements went up on Muni buses implying that Muslims are “savages,” the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency donated the revenue from the ad campaign to the Human Rights Commission. Now several supervisors are asking why the same isn’t being done for ads calling Israel an “apartheid” state.

In other words, they see no difference between suggesting that Muslims are savages and calling Israel an apartheid state. Pro-Israel bloggers are enthused.

AMP has issued a press release. Along with the other members of its coalition, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Asian Law Caucus and the National Lawyers Guild, they are urging San Francisco authorities to uphold open debate.

The coalition calls on the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency to “resist pressure to donate ad proceeds to the Human Rights Commission, which would officially equate the political ads with hate speech.”

(SAN FRANCISCO 05/24/2013) – Civil rights organizations call upon San Francisco authorities to resist pressure to stigmatize Muni bus ads that quote Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu characterizing Israeli policies as apartheid. The coalition, including Jewish Voice for Peace, the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Asian Law Caucus and the National Lawyers Guild, urges San Francisco authorities to uphold open debate on one of the most important human rights issues of our time.

The ads, which first appeared on Muni buses on May 7, were placed by the education and advocacy organization American Muslims for Palestine. They feature political speech that critiques Israeli policy and US foreign aid to Israel. The ads make no denigrating statements about Jewish people or Judaism, nor do they reference that community at all. But in response, the Jewish Community Relations Council, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee – institutions with long histories of attempting to stifle open and honest debate about Israeli policies – have unleashed a relentless smear campaign to mislabel political critique as hate speech. They conflate AMP’s political message with hate-filled racist and Islamophobic ads placed by Pamela Geller and her American Freedom Defense Initiative, which call Palestinians and Muslims ‘savages,’ and denigrate an entire religion and its adherents.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified the Freedom Defense Initiative as a hate group.

“Critique of Israel’s race-based system of governance is not hate, it is core political speech. It is critical to the free marketplace of ideas to resist the pressure to demonize political speech and equate it with anti-Jewish or hate-filled speech,” said Dr. Hatem Bazian, AMP chairman and Berkeley professor.

The coalition is urging the Municipal Transportation Authority and San Francisco supervisors to resist pressure to donate ad proceeds to the Human Rights Commission, which would officially equate the political ads with hate speech. The coalition also urges authorities to resist pressure to shut down its vehicles as a public forum for political speech altogether.

“Many Israeli authorities and other notable figures such as former President Jimmy Carter have used the legal term apartheid to characterize Israeli state policies,” said Carol Sanders of Jewish Voice for Peace. “San Francisco has long been a city where diverse opinions, political speech, and freedom of expression have been valued and protected. It should stay that way.”

The transportation authority may consider a letter sponsored by Supervisor Scott Wiener and signed by six other supervisors calling for condemnation of AMP’s ad at its next meeting. The coalition of human rights and social justice activists is urging SFMTA to uphold the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and refrain from equating political speech with hate speech. To do otherwise would be a disservice to the people of the San Francisco Bay area, where open debate about the great issues of our time and diversity of political opinion are so highly valued.

About Annie Robbins

Annie Robbins is Editor at Large for Mondoweiss, a mother, a human rights activist and a ceramic artist. She lives in the SF bay area. Follow her on Twitter @anniefofani

Israeli Arab Judge, Salim Jubran, has been appointed to the head of Israel Central Election committee- Apartheid my a…

He’s still stuck with the job of enforcing the same old apartheid laws and Supreme Court rulings that prohibit any list of candidates from participating if they advocate overturning the statutes and ministry regulations that grant Jews all of their superior rights and privileges.

Unlike the USA, which adopted a voting rights act and civil rights act to help bring the Jim Crow era to an end, Israeli MK’s are proposing changes to their election laws to further disenfranchise Arab candidates and voters.

Deputy President of the Supreme Court, Justice Elon , ruled in an elections commission case that Arab citizens merely have an equal right to recognize that Israel is the state of the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people:

The principle that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people is Israel’s foundation and mission [yessoda vi-yeuda], and the principle of the equality of rights and obligations of all citizens of the State of Israel is of the State’s essence and character [mahuta ve-ofya]. The latter principle comes only to add to the former, not to modify it; there is nothing in the principle of the equality of civil rights and obligations to modify the principle that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people, and only the Jewish people.

See Ben-Shalom v. Central Election Committee 1988, 272

Someone needs to put that bullshit on a Metro advertisement! I can think of three of four more Israeli Supreme Court opinions that need to be widely publicized so we can drop all of this “he said, she said” nonsense.

Palestine and several of the interested state parties, including Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Cuba, Guinea, the League of Arab States, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference submitted written or oral statements to the relevant UN organs requesting an advisory opinion from the ICJ on the legal consequences of the construction of the wall on Palestinian territory. They explained that Israel was pursuing a policy of “Bantustanization” and “apartheid”. They noted that the construction of the wall and the resulting situation correspond to the constituent acts of the crime of apartheid, as enumerated in Article 2 of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. The Court’s findings of illegality (contained in paragraphs 132-134) also correspond to a number of the constituent acts of the crime of apartheid. The Court cited fact finding reports from the Secretary General and rapporteurs Zeigler and Dugard. Those UN reports in-turn had described the human rights violations resulting from the construction of the “apartheid fence” and reliable Israeli press reports concerning the Sharon government’s deliberate pursuit of a policy of “Bantustanization”.

I’ve commented in the past that neither the Rome Statute nor the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid are the source of basic human rights under international law. The same thing applies to the provisions regarding apartheid in Article 85 of the 1st Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. Those instruments merely criminalize violations of the human rights and humanitarian rights contained in other conventions, like the UN Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and the four Geneva Conventions, themselves.

Israel is not a party to either the Rome Statute, the 1st Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, or the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. So the International Court of Justice had to cite violations of its obligations under the terms of all of the various conventions on human rights and international humanitarian rights mentioned above, of which Israel is either a Member State or contracting State Party.

“Israeli Arab Judge, Salim Jubran, has been appointed to the head of Israel Central Election committee- Apartheid my [ass]”

1/5 of the de jure population of the state which occupies more than 2/3 of Palestine, and it took over half a century to get a Palestinian a permanent appointment to the court. That’s Apartheid. Not to mention the ethno-religious, judeo-supremacist military regimes in the West Bank portion of Palestine. Yeah, pretty much Apartheid. Still further, the illegal ethno-religious based ghettoization policy, reminiscent of the crimes of the 20th C., in the Gaza Strip portion of Palestine. Yeah, absolutely Apartheid.

>> Israeli Arab Judge, Salim Jubran, has been appointed to the head of Israel Central Election committee-

So Israel’s occupation of Palestine is over? Israel has withdrawn to within its / Partition borders? Israel has agreed to enter into sincere negotiations for a just and mutually-beneficial peace? Israel is no longer an oppressive and supremacist “Jewish State” and is now a secular, democratic and egalitarian state of and for all of its citizens, equally?

too damn bad that some Jews feel alienated by ads calling Israel an apartheid state. sorry, but the label just happens to fit. if they’re so upset they should do something about it – Israel’s apartheid, that is. on the other hand the ad that suggests all Muslims are savages, hey, this is despicable stereotyping to the Nth degree and deserves condemnation.

…they should do something about it…” Amen, yt. I think it’s coming. The light bulbs are winking on at a visceral, personal level, imho, that something is very wrong and unsupportable about status quo Israel.

My cue on why is some of the blog reaction to that Gaza kid on Arab Idol. It was almost like why is this kid so loved and we are not. That’s obviously my overstatement, but if even tiny grains of that are seeping into the hasbara strategy, it is meaningful, again imho.

2 Israel is effectively engaging in a national system of abuse of Palestinians. It is fascinating to see intolerance raised as an issue in the US to defend abuse in Israel. The centre won’t be able to hold on this defence, I’m afraid.

R: What I’ve observed over the past decades is that it is a genuine reaction, fueled by whatever happened in the past and prolonged by present day myths and fables [although some shards of truths are also intertwined with that rich folklore]. In that sense, to some, Israel is indeed the ‘holy’ land and will be defended regardless the moral ramifications of doing so. It’s quite difficult to be able to not condemn something you’re condemning, but some people do pull it off.

‘ to “be used to fight growing intolerance alienating the Jewish community.”

If Wiener feels ‘alienated’ by the ads he can always go live in Israel…after all that’s what Israel is for isn’t it?….we’ve spent a trillion dollars on a state for Jews to go to if they don’t like it here or wherever they live…..he can go ‘self determine’ to not see any ads mentioning the Palestine occupation in Israel.

So the SPLC defines the bots behind this as a hate group. Another milestone for zionism . It is a degenerative ideology . Started off with so much goodwill and now spawns hate speech . Onwards and downwards .

Why? Did someone suggest that the Jewish community in SF practises apartheid? Supports apartheid? Defends apartheid? The ad mentions Israel (not the Jewish community), Americans (not Jewish Americans) and the U.S. (not the San Francisco Jewish community).

Had someone called out the “Jewish community” (or at least its mainstream institutions and most vocal spokesmen) for its support and defence of apartheid, that would have been alienating – true, but alienating. If the “Jewish community” can’t take its political choices being challenged (even harshly), then it should stay out of politics.

It’s rather ironic that it is those claiming to defend the Jewish community — not the people behind the ad — who are blaming all Jews (by religious/ethnic association) for Israeli apartheid. Shame on them.

Against whom? The members of San Francisco’s board of supervisors (7 out of 12) who think they’re doing the Jewish community a favour by equating this ad (end apartheid ) with the previous one (Muslim savages)?

It will be in the Christian churches. And the more squawking that groups like CAMERA do (re: CBS and Bob Simon) a year after the fact the worse they are making it for themselves. But, of course, they will never see it that way until it’s too late…when it’s cry me a river time.

Yes bintbiba, that’s right… “darabni wa baka, saba’ni wa shtaka”. The rhyme is beautiful and the structure is extremely concise, just like all great arabic poetry. Your Mama will certainly be proud of you!!

Ramzi, bintbiba: I think this terrific saying is the same as this:
ضربني وبكى سبقني و شتكى (Darabni wa baka, sabaqni wa shtaka) But I don’t know much Arabic, so am not sure. I would like to ask a question.

When you wrote ‘ in the middle of your version of ‘he preceded / anticipated me’ (saba’ni) did you mean hamza (ء)? Or perhaps ‘ain (ع )? And is that a common Palestinian substitute for qaf (q, ق ) as in the middle of the same word (sabaqni) in the above version? I noticed more than one type of Arabic in Palestine and don’t know much about any of them.

MRW, the linguist in me can’t help noting that Arabic is not a stress language, it’s a vowel-length language, so stress isn’t really important in it – vowel length is. There aren’t any long vowels in any of these particular words.

Sorry for boring most readers stiff with this, but I am really interested in the answers to this question!

Not to bore the gracious MW community… with “accents”, the anglicized way would be: “darabani wa baka, sabaqani wa ishtaka”. This is the Classical Arabic where the “ain (ع )” is used in “sabaqani”.

In colloquial Arabic, depending where in Palestine or other Arab countries, we say “darabni w’baka, saba’ni wishtaka”. Here the “ain (ع )” in “sabaqani” is pronounced as a “hamza (ء)”, making it “saba’ni”.

The dialect variations across Palestine are rather small and one easily understand across these. It’s not the same across Arab countries as dialects are fundamentally differently that sometimes Classical Arabic is the only way to ensure understanding and correct communication.

Hope this clarifies just a bit Kate, and keep up your valiant study of Arabic language! We appreciate your interest and your support of the Palestinian cause.

MRW, the linguist in me can’t help noting that Arabic is not a stress language, it’s a vowel-length language, so stress isn’t really important in it – vowel length is

So would a long vowel be like tones in Chinese? I love being able to at least pronounce a foreign language properly. My hair winds up in my hands with Gaelic (which my grandmother spoke fluently and never taught me). Thx to Ramzi and Kate.

R: The number of people who’ve been vocal about the disproportionate Apartheid Regime’s actions and been alienated by said Regime, is simply staggering [Mr. Hawking, anyone?]. The book will be folded any day soon now and its pages turn to dust. Zionism is Judaism’s only enemy.

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